All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
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Douglas Murray joins Freddy Gray to discuss free speech in Britain following the sentences handed down after the riots, how different free speech is in America, and how Douglas himself became a victim of online hate.
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Labour is planning to reform the civil service into five ‘missions’ that will lead the agenda, moving away from the purely departmental way of arranging priorities at the moment. Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Jill Rutter from the Institute for Government and UK In a Changing Europe (and a former civil servant) about
The brave clown who speaks the truth and shames the devil is a showbiz tradition, from Charlie Chaplin to Lenny Bruce. The comedian more than any other creative is best-placed to play the role of the cheeky urchin who points out that the Emperor has no clothes. But in recent years, drolls have ceased to
The news was seemingly big but the announcement curiously low key. Earlier this month, China declared that it had discovered what it described as the world’s first large-scale gas field in ultra deep waters and not far beneath the seabed. Lingshui 36-1 contained 100 billion cubic metres of gas, said the China national offshore oil corporation
As I write, four brigades of the Ukrainian army are advancing into the territory of the Russian Federation, and are establishing what looks like a bridgehead for further operations. They crossed the frontier from the Sumy Oblast, to the north of Kharkhiv six days ago, overpowered the Chechen frontier guards, and have been rolling to
There have been lots of reasons to be optimistic this summer: the glorious spectacle of the Olympics; the (relatively) good weather; the Bank of England finally cutting interest rates amid falling inflation. Yet this summer has also seen a pernicious epidemic of violence, hate and prejudice. I’m not talking about the right-wing riots, but the
When three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany were destroyed by unknown saboteurs in September 2022, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak described the bombing as ‘a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU.’ The attack – which knocked out the route through which Germany
According to canon 1220 of the Catholic church’s code of canon law, ‘all those responsible are to take care that in churches such cleanliness and beauty are preserved as befit a house of God and that whatever is inappropriate to the holiness of the place is excluded’. So, if Canterbury cathedral were still Catholic, as
Prison is supposedly a place for wrongdoers to repent and reform – but it seems that even the staff inside are no angels themselves. After a female Wandsworth prison guard was suspended in July for a viral video of her, er, engaging with an inmate, Mr S did some digging into how widespread this phenomenon this
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Less than 48 hours after Transport Secretary Louise Haigh hailed a new deal with train drivers… the rail union Aslef announced further strike action. So what happened to Labour’s ‘relationship reset’ with the unions? And with recent pay deals, what incentive is there for workers to compromise with the government? Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman
All is not well in the Scottish Tory party. Now four of the six candidates have released a statement calling for the leadership race to be paused until they receive assurances on the contest’s ‘transparency and fairness’. The letter, signed by Murdo Fraser, Jamie Greene, Liam Kerr and Brian Whittle, is addressed to the party’s
It’s a day that ends in ‘y’ so the nationalists are fighting amongst themselves again. This time it’s over a controversial meeting between the Scottish government’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson and Daniela Grudsky, the deputy ambassador of Israel to the UK. As Mr S revealed this week, certain Nats were rather upset about the encounter,
So, we were all so impressed with the swashbuckling performance of Gareth Southgate’s team that we all rushed out and bought replica England shirts and packs of lager – to the point that retail sales in July were 0.5 per cent higher than in June. No, I don’t buy that either – even though it
It is less than 48 hours since the government hailed a new deal with train drivers as proof that two years of rail strikes would soon be coming to an end. So it will be some embarrassment that Aslef, the rail union, today announced a further 22 days of strike action on the east coast
She didn’t have to slog around New Hampshire, there were no debates, and there were few opportunities for voters or journalists to ask Kamala Harris any questions. The Democratic nomination for President fell into her lap when it became painfully clear that Joe Biden was far too old and too unwell to run for a
The government has a bit of a conundrum. Given how Keir Starmer and his Labour colleagues damned the previous Conservative administration for failing to lock down the country early enough for Covid, what are they now going to do about the new strain of monkeypox (or ‘mpox’, as we are now supposed to call it)?
After a year of speculation about how Keir Starmer would work with Donald Trump, the situation stateside has changed dramatically. Gone is the flailing Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate; in his place is Kamala Harris, his resurgent vice president. She enters her party’s national convention as the bookmakers’ favourite to win the White
As the Tory leadership race heats up, all six candidates are trying to draw dividing lines to stand out to their fellow MPs – and the membership. Now Tom Tugendhat has taken to Twitter to make clear his stance on the all-important issue of, um, TikTok. The China hawk has slammed the Beijing-based social media
Few will shed a tear at the news that Columbia University president Minouche Shafik is stepping down after months of criticism of her handling of campus protests over the war in Gaza. Her abrupt resignation – just a few weeks before the autumn semester is due to begin – brings to a close her turbulent
The phrase ‘without fear or favour’ has been much in the news of late. Whether the maxim is still applicable to the British constabulary is a matter of conjecture. Some, like the ex-policeman Harry Miller, have been saying for years that the police ‘have traded impartiality for the praise of special interest groups’. Miller was
Some Spectator readers may recall the rather charming story of the small local newspaper in West Cork which took on the might of the Russian empire. In September 1898, following Tsar Nicolas II’s success in securing a warm water base for the Russian navy in the south China sea, a thunderous editorial warned the expansionist ruler that:
The Scottish nationalists are aggrieved. What’s new, I hear you ask. Well, a diplomatic row, one which has prompted some decidedly undiplomatic language. The Scottish establishment is worked up after it emerged that Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s pretendy foreign secretary, met with Daniela Grudsky. Who’s she? Why, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom. Their
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The broader story this morning paints a positive picture for the UK economy. While growth in June took a pause, growth in Q2 for this year is estimated to be 0.6 per cent, roughly in line with what markets were predicting, as forecasts for UK growth have been repeatedly revised upwards since the start of
John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, is a distinguished broadcaster whose career spans seven decades, from interviewing the exiled King Mutesa II of Buganda to covering the post-Gaddafi civil war in Libya. Like any of us, however, he is not immune from a poorly considered opinion. This week, on Twitter, he stumbled awkwardly over
For almost a fortnight, the Democrats have had only one word in their word cloud when it comes to JD Vance: ‘Weird.’ On Sunday, Vance finally responded to the charge, on CNN’s State of the Union, calling it: ‘fundamentally school yard bully stuff.’ ‘No, we’re not ’, Trump had told a rally in Montana, a couple of days earlier. ‘We’re
Will the last lobby hack please turn out the lights? After Torcuil Crichton and Paul Waugh made the jump from journalism into politics by being elected last month, now another scribe has formally joined the Starmer army. After much Westminster speculation about the slowness of SpAd appointments, today Guido Fawkes revealed an interesting new hire.
Of the hundreds of people arrested in the wake of the riots, one in particular haunts my mind. It’s Julie Sweeney from Church Lawton in Cheshire. She’s a 53-year-old carer for her husband. And this week she was sentenced to 15 months in jail for writing an odious Facebook post while the riots were in
Well, well, well. Now Ireland’s former Taoiseach has swooped in to defend the Olympian at the centre of a gender row. Leo Varadkar’s gushing Instagram post in support of gold medallist Imane Khelif hit users’ feeds last night, accompanied by some rather odd graphics. The ex-Irish PM reposted a screenshot from the ‘@fitnessgayz’ account, with
The UK economy flatlined in June, as uncertainty over the general election and industrial action took their toll on economic growth. It wasn’t expected to be a strong month for the economy, with markets forecasting very little GDP growth, if any. But the small dip in services output – a fall of 0.1 per cent,
It has taken six weeks, but already the government has lost control of public finances. The decision to award train drivers a pay rise of 15 per cent spread over three years, and backdated, without any requirement to reform outdated working practices, won’t break the government’s piggy bank on its own, but is has set
They say honesty is the best policy, but there are times when a little discretion is more advisable. It’s something Scottish Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr should note, after it emerged the politician had shared some rather candid thoughts about Murdo Fraser’s leadership campaign on WhatsApp. Not only are the messages damning – Kerr publicly endorsed